Getting to Know the Songwriters at the 30a Songwriter Festival Press Conference

The 30a Songwriter Festival press conference at Fish Out of Water in Watercolor was a unique opportunity to see eleven of the songwriters sitting in the same room.

It is always a treat to hear an artist talk about themselves in a casual setting. It gives a window into their personality that sometimes is different than your perception of them.

Highlights included Charlie Mars talking about the loner nature of being a traveling musician. How he was looking forward to the camaraderie of the festival.

David Olney quipped, “I’ve made a bunch of recordings, and I’m going to continue to do that until someone buys them. I play with Serigo Webb, we did a tour of six dates in Iowa, which is lovely this time of year. On the way back to Nashville the brakes gave out in the car, it didn’t stop moving until I got here. This is the third time I’ve been down here, and it is nice to find out what other folks are thinking about, and writing about, and maybe steal some stuff.”

Vicki Peterson shared a how things can wrong at the festival, “We love 30a, we played three years ago. On our way to our very first show managed to lock all of our guitars in the rental car, in the trunk. Who knew the trunk was going to lock? We had to borrow guitars at the very last minute. We had to get a ride to where we were going because we couldn’t get into our car. A lot of exciting things can happen when you are nervous and excited like we all are.”

Being both topical and projecting a rockstar image, Miles Zuniga of Fastball introduced himself by saying, “My name is Lance Armstrong, and I just want to say I’m really sorry.” He followed that up by proclaiming that his festival plans included, “To get drunk basically, lay in the sun, and play a couple of shows.”

Both Reed Waddle and Adam Hoffman (of The Shadowboxers) shared the sentiment that the 30a Songwriters Festival was one of their favorite gigs every year.

All of the artists looked forward to playing their shows, playing shows with others, and in a few cases have exclusive copies of albums that have yet to be officially released.